The Thing That a Woman Needs for a Healthy Sex Life
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There's something every woman needs.
It might not even be something she knows she needs.
In fact, she thinks she needs everything else first.
The perfect body, the perfect house, having everything under control.
But once she has it, she never wants to be without it.
It’s her refuge. It’s her source of magic and power. And it’s hers to enjoy.
The thing that every woman needs is to feel at home in her own body.
Her body is her temple.
Her body is her source of energy and confidence.
And her body is the safest place to be.
Our bodies are our protectors. They feel danger before our brains do (in a matter of 1/100 of a second), and they alert us so we can take care of ourselves. When we shut down the body, we cut the wires of our own protective system. We limit our ability to interact with the world and keep ourselves safe. And it makes us hyper-vigilant — as if stuck on '“on” all the time — which drains our energy, saps our confidence, and pulls us further away from being able to experience sexual desire and libido.
When you learn to inhabit your body, you feel peaceful inside.
The noise levels drop.
The vigilance goes down.
You feel spacious and calm.
It’s a feeling akin to coming home.
In this space, you’re more present, in the here and now. It’s called embodiment and it’s about experiencing life one with your own body, through the body and the safety that it provides.
It also happens that it’s fertile ground for sexual desire to arise from within.
You don’t need to learn some fancy meditation technique to do this.
And you certainly don’t need to buy any expensive equipment.
But there is one sure-fire fun path to learn to inhabit your body — and it’s through pleasure.
Your own pleasure.
Pleasure in your own body.
When you learn to feel, receive and experience pleasure in your body, you become its resident. You become embodied. You come home.
Pleasure relaxes and calms the nervous system
Whether it’s lingering in the arms of your partner, or taking a long hot bath, pleasure relax and grounds. From the nervous system perspective, pleasure takes us out of fight/flight mode and into the parasympathetic, where the heart rate slows down, the muscles soften, and we become more open to feeling again.
Relaxation and feeling pleasurable sensations in your body resets the nervous system, makes it more resilient and also sensitive to detect and act on threats, and allows all organs and systems to work properly. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s like a reset button for your computer — it’s a necessity.
Pleasure feeds the libido
Pleasure is a necessary element for sexual arousal in the body, which is critical to wanting sex in a deeply genuine way from the inside. If you resonate with responsive sexual desire, you need to feel pleasure in your body first, before the idea of sex becomes compelling. It is pleasure that allows you to open to sexual touch and energy and welcome your partner.
Pleasure makes the body come alive
Don’t believe me? Right now, bring up in your imagination a moment of pleasure or something that felt comforting for you in the last 24 hours. Something that you enjoyed or that felt good. A warm hug from your partner. A tasty salad for lunch. A sweet moment with your kid.
What happens in your body when you do? A smile? A softening in the face? A melting of the shoulders? A spark or tingle?
And that’s what pleasure does. It softens us and makes the armor that we carry just a little bit lighter.
Pleasure builds confidence
Pleasure makes us feel good … and when we feel good, we start to feel good and we feel unstoppable.
When you feel confident from the inside, when you fall in love with your body, you feel whole. You don’t have to fight yourself and your energy can go into making things happen in areas that are important to you.
All of this may be simple, but inhabiting our own body can be scary.
You might feel guilt — because if you’re inhabiting your own body, you can’t take care of others. And that can be uncomfortable. It’s easier to shut this whole thing down that to feel those pangs of guilt.
You might feel shame — because women’s pleasure has been taboo for a very long time. Our pleasure as women has not been allowed to exist to be ours — and many different institutions have made it their job to instill shame in us for that. Closing up made sense.
Or you simply might not know how to be in your body at all due to trauma that left us out of our bodies for protection.
Pleasure heals trauma
So many of us, especially the highly sensitive ones, have shut down ways of feeling in our body because it hurt before. We opened up, we felt so much and so deeply, and it was too much. Or we got hurt when we opened up and we decided to not feel again. Closing up and shutting down our body is a safe thing to do in the face of trauma. This ability to disengage and disinhibit the body that feels so much pain protects us and makes us feel safe.
While saving us in some situations, shutting down or withdrawing from our own body bars us from accessing the energy we need to thrive. When we close down and learn to exist outside of the body, we condition ourselves to live by starving and running on empty.
The thing is that an empty engine can’t go far. And an empty engine struggles to turn on, especially sexually. It might be able to perform or fake it, but that feels like work and takes up energy it does not have.
Being in your body is the key to both a vibrant life — and sexual desire. That’s because sexual desire is synonymous with feeling alive, with creative energy coursing through your body. And your body has the answers to feeling sexual — as in, actually feeling sexual desire in your body.
The first step is finding ways to connect to it again.
The good news is connecting to your body takes enjoying yourself with a bit of pleasure. And you don’t have to go far.
Our bodies are pleasure machines.
We automatically — without doing anything — feel pleasure when we breathe.
Our skin is wired to feel pleasure when touched — and by our own hands included.
And our brain feels pleasure when we think of good thoughts.
This miraculous body we have wants to give it to us, by the cupfuls. It’s yours to enjoy yourself!
Here are surprisingly-easy ways that your body can give you pleasure — and allow you to inhabit it. Based on somatic practices that allow you to find your way back to yourself, they’re also part of my Connection Sex framework that’s a powerful antidote to losing your interest in sex.
These ways are surprising … not because you’ve never thought or seen these. They’re surprising because they’re all around … and we don’t take time to notice them or take advantage of their power. And they’re yours for taking.
All it takes is delighting in it with what I call a daily “pleasure pause.”
It is what it sounds like: slow down to pause and register the pleasure you feel in your body. As you’ll read in the examples, it’s there for the taking.
Think of these “pleasure pauses” as training your mind to register the sensations you feel in your body — thereby becoming intimate with it. Being in it. Experiencing life through it.
Here are tiny “pleasure pauses” to access pleasure in your body daily — no matter how busy you are.
1. RELAXATION
Imagine … feeling your muscles relax.
Imagine … having a moment of quiet, when things slow down.
Imagine … your body get heavier, melting into your bed or seat.
It feels soooo good to relax.
And you can have this … if you’re willing to slow down and feel it.
Here are two tiny but mighty pleasure pauses to access the joy of relaxation:
Pleasure Pause: Feeling Your Breath. The exhale is our body’s natural relaxation response … and it packs double the punch when we actually notice ourselves breathing. Without trying, naturally breathe in, then slowly breathe out. Notice what happens to the body as you breathe: how your rib cage expands on inhale, relaxes on exhale. Notice how your muscles relax as you breathe out. Do it a couple more times, paying close attention to the exhale.
Pleasure Pause: Relax into Your Body: When you’re sitting, check with your body: are you holding yourself up by your muscles, or are you letting the seat hold you? If you find yourself tensing your muscles to hold yourself up, relax them and notice how good it feels to drop into the seat.
2. RELEASE
You’ve probably felt the power of release when you have a good cry, or laugh, or even a sneeze … not to mention an orgasm. While we can’t orchestrate a good cry or sneeze, and sometimes having an orgasm is not feasible in the moment, you can still enjoy the power of release through … laughing. the power of release? The moment when you’ve cried and feel so much better afterwards. Or the moment release - crying, laughing, orgasm.
We feel good when we laugh. According to Harvard research, hearty laughter can relieve tension and stress; boost the immune system, by reducing stress hormones and increasing activity among immune cells and antibodies; and help reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, by improving blood flow and blood vessel function. And a good joke releases “feel good” neurotransmitters in the brain: dopamine, serotonin, and an array of endorphins.
A fully belly laugh or a smile, your body will thank you with pleasure.
Pleasure Pause: Your Daily Laugh. Subscribe to your favorite cat or dog video channel and pick one daily to watch in the morning. Or get it out when you feel particularly overwhelmed. You’ll feel light and funny and it’s a ritual that evokes laughter and lightness.
3. SENSUAL PLEASURE
Our senses as much deliver information to us about the external world as they also bring us pleasure. The pleasure of hearing your favorite music. The pleasure of tasting your favorite wine. The pleasure of feeling warmth.
And the only way to capture this pleasure is to slow down and notice it.
Pleasure Pause: Taste Your Food. Slow down to take in your food with all your senses. Our senses naturally produce pleasure for us from the food we eat (otherwise we would not be eating that food to begin with). Before you take a bite, look at your food. Allow your eyes to take in the colors and textures. Smell your food; try bringing it closer to your nose and taking in the aroma. Feel your food, taking a finger and pressing against it, checking out its texture. And finally taste it, slowly, taking in a small bite, and tasting it with different parts of your mouth. How does it taste when touched with the tongue? What do you feel at the top of your mouth? This is all pleasure and it’s in every bite!
4. TOUCH
Our skin is our body’s biggest pleasure organ. In addition to regular nerves, we carry specialized nerve fibers, called C-tactile fibers, in skin. They are purely pleasure fibers and have a direct route to the brain.
Pleasure is literally all over our body, making touch is one of the most powerful ways to access it. And self touch is no exception.
Then there is this fact: according to Dr. Daniel Amen, in his book Sex on The Brain, women are about ten times more sensitive to the great sensations of soft touch than men are.
Accessing pleasure in your skin takes as little as slow down for momentary touch of your skin any time of day.
Pleasure Pause: Self Touch. Take a moment to gently touch your hands or stroke your face. Feel the contact between the skin of your fingers and the skin on another part of your body. Notice the sensations: do you feel warmth, softness, tingles? Stroke and continue feeling the sensation for just a few moments to access the deliciousness of touch.
Pleasure Pause: Partner Touch. Next time you hug your partner, allow yourself to feel his body next to you. Feel the skin to skin contact. Feel his contours and outline against yours. Notice your own breath. Notice your muscles, if they’re soft or tight. Allow yourself to be in the hug more than just for gesture.
5. MOVEMENT
All of nature is constantly moving and changing. We are movement, and movement is us. And it’s no wonder that ecstasy, the highest form of pleasure, is also rhythmic and pulsating in nature.
You can create a deep sense of pleasure by moving your body mindfully and waking the body up from stagnation.
Pleasure Pause: Put on your favorite song and dance. Let your body decide how and when it wants to move to the music. There is no pressure to move as you need to. It’s about moving as you want to — at your pace, the way that feels good. Allow your body parts to move you. Watch this demo and get your groove on … for you!
*BONUS: IMAGINING PAST/FUTURE MOMENTS OF PLEASURE
Our brain works in such a way that when we imagine or recall pleasurable situations, the brain attempts to simulate the responses that occurred or might occur when these situations actually happen. The brain releases the same chemicals, such as dopamine, serotonin and an array of endorphins, mimicking the pleasurable experience.
So imagine away how pleasure would feel … if you were in the arms of your beloved, bathing in touch exactly how you love it, or enjoying the moment of pleasure.
Pleasure Pause: Imagine a moment of pleasure. Take a moment to recall a cherished moment of pleasure from the past and really feel the experience as it becomes vivid in your mind. Can you see what is happening? Can you smell it? Can you taste it? Allow it to come alive in your imagination, as if you’re truly there. Then notice what happens in your body when you do.
This article on the 15 ways to turn yourself on with pleasure has more ideas on enjoying your own body.
Enjoy these pleasure pauses and let me know what you think.
